Book – Planet Boomer

Planet Boomer:

Retire Now for Less in Southeast Asia

For all of those Boomers who are looking down the barrel of an underfunded and uncomfortable retirement, this guidebook offers a great escape—to an inspired life in Southeast Asia, where the cost of comfort is half of what it is in Canada.

Read about 15 fascinating destinations in 5 countries where people are living in dream houses and condos on the beach, up in the mountains, or in dynamic urban landscapes. Amid these tempting stories, you’ll find practical advice on visas, taxes, health care, and buying and renting property.

Whether dropping out of the corporate grind at 50 or retiring at 60, Boomers have a lot of living to do. This book will show you where and how.

Authors Jim Herrler and Ellen Ma left successful careers in marketing and advertising in Canada to fly to Southeast Asia in 2006. After living in Singapore and Shanghai, their research for this book led them to a long-term visa in an island paradise with a beachfront condo, vibrant expat community, and five-star health care—all for a fraction of the cost of living in Canada.

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Excerpt

Freedom. It’s about time.

There are not many periods in your life when you get to experience real freedom. Most of us enjoyed just that in our late teens and twenties, pre-marriage and before any kids arrived. Before mortgage and debt and work took on a great seriousness.

But once the kids are grown, debts are paid, and your working life is winding down, suddenly you enter another period of freedom.

Will you enjoy it now just as you did when you were twenty-one?

You can. All you need to do is to be clever and brave enough to change your lifestyle and leverage the benefits of that freedom. It doesn’t matter if you are 45 or nearly 65. If you have reached a turning point in your life, then clean the slate and look at all the options. Be brave.

And if you are facing retirement, then see it as an opportunity, not a death sentence. It is an extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live your life to the fullest.

Isn’t 60 supposed to be the new 40?

There are a few key decision-making moments in your life. One was back in the days when you chose a career; others were choosing whom to marry, where to live, whether to have children.

Now is the time to decide how to live your next life chapter. Do you stay put, age in place, and let the years pile on or do you reach for something more, something more inspiring? Whether you are burned out at 40 or facing the same old landscape at 60, making a bold change can be a fresh start on the rest of your life.

Once the kids are grown and become self-sufficient and once debts are paid and your working life ends, suddenly you enter another period of immense freedom—it’s back to your 20s again.

If you are one of Canada’s 10 million baby boomers, chances are that the kids are grown (or nearly so), the dog is dead (or nearly so), your house is paid for (or nearly so), and the job is winding down or, in some cases, just too intolerable to put up with anymore.

But you have to soldier on. Ten more years, fifteen, twenty? That’s what we do. It is our script.

The end game reads like this: stay in your home as long as you can, get another dog, hang about with the kids and grandkids, and learn to count your pennies because all those years of saving didn’t get you as far as you thought. But that’s okay, you’ll spend your time at the same golf course, restaurants, clubs, and pubs you have always gone to. Watch more TV, trim those lawns to perfection, spend an extra two weeks at the cottage (but not too much; the bugs are bad in the spring and it gets cold in late October).

We can hear some of you saying that is exactly what you are looking forward to, what you’ve been working for. To many Canadians, thousands of you, however, it isn’t enough. It is your parents’ life and it doesn’t have to be yours. Why raise the white flag when there is so much more living to do?

This book outlines an alternative in a Southeast Asian country. It offers a chance for a new life for six months, for a year, for a few years, or forever. And a less expensive life that will make your hard-earned dollars stretch further than they ever would at home.

It speaks to those who see impending retirement not as declining sunset years but as the dawn of an inspiring and exciting period of their lives. It speaks to Canadians of any age who defy the status quo—the expected outcome—and who relish the idea of living in a place where winter never comes. Even if it’s just a temporary choice, from a few months to a longer term, you can extend your finances, sport a permanent tan, and get healthier as you run, swim, play tennis, or golf every day of the year.

Sure, you can do the “sensible” thing and decide not to indulge in a nice night out because you need to save up for that new snow blower or set aside extra money for the January gas bill.

Is that what’s stopping you from your dream retirement?

Money? Maybe. But there is a bigger reason: you. You are the biggest obstacle between the retirement you can afford and the retirement you have dreamed about.